1. Field of the Invention
The invention is related to the field of voice communications, and in particular, to systems and methods of adding attachments to voice calls over a circuit-based network.
2. Statement of the Problem
In data communications such as email, a sender of emails can easily reuse information, data, files, etc, in multiple emails. The sender can reuse data by adding attachments to each of the emails to be viewed by the recipients. For instance, the sender can attach one or more files to each of the emails. Also, the sender can add a hyperlink to each of the emails that navigates the recipients to desired files. Adding attachments to emails in this manner allows the sender to provide the recipients with the desired information without the sender having to manually enter the information in each of the emails.
Unfortunately, current voice communication services over a circuit-based network do not provide a similar feature of reusing information by adding attachments to voice calls. When a calling party places a voice call to a called party, the calling party conveys information to the called party by speaking the information. If the calling party wants to convey the same information multiple times to the same called party or to multiple called parties, the calling party has to speak the same information each time.
Voice mail services allow a voice mail subscriber to reuse information in limited circumstances. The subscriber records information in a message and the message is played to callers that reach the voice mail system. They provide entire messages to play when the phone is not answered, but don't provide a mechanism where one can insert a number of pre-recorded messages anywhere during a live call. A problem remains that voice callers using a circuit-based network cannot reuse information for multiple calls by adding attachments to the calls.